What Kind of Church is This

John 17:16–23 “They do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world. Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I set myself apart on their behalf, so that they too may be truly set apart. “I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. The glory you gave to me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one—I in them and you in me—that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.”

Introduction: One of the questions I get asked a lot, is “what kind of church is this.” My response is usually “Just Christian.” And usually the response back is “yeah, but what denomination is it?” And I respond “We’re just Christian.” And they say “So…is that like…Protestant?” I thought today would be a great day to really dive in and talk about what kind of church we are. Because we’re truly just a “Christian” Church.

If You’re new here, this might be interesting. If you’ve been around quite a while this might be old material. But I encourage you to work through this process with me, so that we can re-affirm our Identity as Alliance Christian Church.

I want to really clarify the History, Principles, and Practices of ACC.

Scripture to Set the Tone.

John 17:16-23

John 17:16–23 NET 2nd ed.

They do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world. Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I set myself apart on their behalf, so that they too may be truly set apart. “I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. The glory you gave to me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one—I in them and you in me—that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.

One of the things you’ll notice is that Jesus is really heavy on three things.

His followers are not of this world

Unity

Truth

With that as the backdrop, I want to sort of clear the air and talk about what kind of church ACC is.

And to start off, I thought it might be helpful to talk a little bit first about what we’re NOT.

Not a Protestant Church

Define Protestant, Luther,

“hey guys I found this book...”

Reformation.

Not a Denomination

Define Denomination: Common name, creed or confession, and government structure or hierarchy.

1800s in USA, as the country really started to expand, you had all of these Denominations from europe co-mingling.

Basically when you put them all in the same room with one another, they started to look around at all of the party divisions, and rediculous divisions that existed, and people started to look around, and then read their bible, and say “hey guys I found this book, what if we just did what was in this book?”

They were sick of the division that came from all of these denominations.

Independently ministers started doing this in their churches, throwing off the denominational ties, and just going back to the scriptures.

These people started meeting each other. Hey you’re going back to the bible, me too. etc.

We should get together and form our own church. We could elect a governmental structure, come up with a common statement of faith, we could all unite under a common name.... wait a minute, we did the thing....

And it was at this point in history that it really dawned on people, this isn’t working.

So they actually shut down their church. They said it’s human structures that are causing all of this division. Why don’t we just be “Christians”

And instead of a “Creed” —nicene creed, apostolic creed, westminster confession, Baptist confession of faith, Ausburg confession, hiedelberg chatecism These were all extra creeds and confessions being used and still used today

And they were like, no seriously what if we just did this…what if we just used the Bible…

no creed but christ, no book but the bible.

It was out of this radical idea that Churches like Alliance Christian Church comes.

Because all of these creeds and confessions were all attempts to take something that was broken and “fix” it. Reform it. Protestant “reformation”

Not a Reformed Church

We’re not trying to “fix” anything, or shape anything, or take the skeleton of a broken denominational structure and “Reshape” or “Reform” it.

What we’re doing is we’re taking the Bible, and looking at this snapshot that we have of the earliest Christians and we’re trying to Restore that.

A Restored Church

General Principles

A New Testament Church

This one’s pretty important. If we want to know what Christians should do, and what the Christian church should look like, we take our cue from the New Testament.

That does NOT mean that the Old testament isn’t important. It’s very important. I try to spend at least as much time in the Old testament at the New in preaching. But the Old covenant, the old covenant isn’t about the Christian Church.

We’re not under the Old covenant.

So we’re not going to go back to the Law, back to the old covenant in order to determine our actions.

Especially because in a LOT of places, the New Testament will take a law, or a custom, or a principle that’s in the Old testament and either fulfill it—meaning it’s no longer applicable, or it will reframe it.

Food laws: under the new covenant all foods are declared clean

Tithing, the practice of demanding 10% tithe, that’s only found in the old testament. The new testament says “give cheerfully, and willingly, and according to your ability”

2 Corinthians 9:7 “Each one of you should give just as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, because God loves a cheerful giver.”

Christians Only

The reason why our name “Alliance Christian Church” is so generic, is two-fold.

Surprise: because it’s from the Bible.

Even something as simple as what do you name a church

Acts 9:1-2,

Acts 11:26,

1 Cor 1:2,

Gal 1:2,

1 Thes 1:1,

Rom 16:16

A lot of other churches who think like us have unique names, but usually all come from the NT example

Followers of “The Way”

Church of Christ

Christians

Disciples

The Church in [town name]

Acts 11:26 NET 2nd ed.

and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught a significant number of people. Now it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.

2)

it signals to the community that we’re merely Christians. All are welcome here. It doesn’t matter what your background is, party, denomination any of that.

We are signaling to the community that we are not this denomination, or that denomination. We’re just Christians .

Because there aren’t 34,000 different Churches. There’s only one church.

Not the only Christians

We’re not the one true church.

We don’t even think that “Non-Denominational” churches, or “churches that think exactly like us are the one true church.

The One true Church consists of every Christian who has made Jesus Christ Lord of his life, and is trying to follow the truth set forth in his word.

We work with our neighbors across the street, and other congregations of Christ’s church, and truly do desire to work with more.

One of the things I try to do as much as possible is reach out to other churches and congregations, and cooperate with them.

With the goal being unity in Christ.

A United Church

Unity

The “bad” way to have unity

The “unity” efforts from church history involved consolidation of power upward, everyone is “unified” under the Bishop/Emperor/Pope/Denominational statement of faith

Unity through authority

The Better way to have unity

Our authority comes from the Bible

I have an open invitation for you to disagree with me every Sunday. I am not an authority on the scriptures. We can open the Bible and find a solution.

Unity through humility

What do you do if you have an issue, and the Bible doesn’t talk about it?

What about things the NT doesn’t talk about?

Two ways of dealing with that

Silence = Forbidden

The New Testament lists everything we CAN do, and if it’s not in the New Testament, it’s not allowed

This can go off the rails very VERY quickly

This leads to division

Silence = Permission

Issues not brought up in the New Testament we are allowed to do

This method provides for unity

Other churches do things differently than us, we don’t tell them what to do, they don’t tell us what to do.

this principle depends on Careful study of the scriptures, charity, and discernment

If the Bible doesn’t speak, we don’t either

So important. we can’t make a rule that we don’t find in scripture.

Specific Practices

Authority:

Christ as the ultimate authority.

The Apostles teachings (the actual apostles teachings, not “descendants” of the apostles

Plurality of Elders in the Church (that’s ron and stew)

James 5:14,

Phil 1:1,

1 Peter 5:1,

Acts 14:23,

Titus 1:5,

Acts 11:30

Deacons/Ministers (that’s me)

Romans 16:1,

1 Timothy 3:8,

1 Corinthians 3:5,

Ephesians 6:21,

Acts 6,

Phil 1:1

Practice in the church:

Acts 2:42 Apostles teaching, Fellowship, Breaking of Bread, Prayer

Acts 2:42 NET 2nd ed.

They were devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Lord’s supper:

Mat 26,

1 Cor 10-11,

Acts 2:42,

Acts 2:46,

John 6,

Acts 20:7

Initiation into the Church

Acts 8:12,

Acts 8:36,

Acts 16:33,

Acts 22:16,

Romans 6:3,

1 Cor 12:13,

Gal 3:27,

Col 2:12,

1 Peter 3:21,

Recognize that this is different than what a lot of people might be used to. Can be a deal breaker for a lot of people. If you’re in that camp, please ask questions. Find me after the sermon, come to Tuesday night, call me during the week.

This leads us to second major principle:

Pitfalls

How much should we pattern our church after the NT?

Do we do every single thing that happened in the New Testament?

Household slaves?

Do we have to Baptize in the exact river?

Do we have to have “house” churches?

Do we have to have to send each other letters?

As a base-floor starting point we can point to extremely clear “patterns”

From there, as questions come up,we can study, and assess,

and determine if we should make a change.

Practices Other than the practices we mentioned previously, these are some other ways that ACC tries to be a New Testament Church

Sharing a meal.

Monthly fellowship dinner

Most weeks when we don’t share a meal at the church everyone goes to lunch together

As we grow, I want to see that continue. I think it’s a good thing, and I want us to figure out what we need to do to maintain that practice

Preaching through the Bible

My own safeguard to preaching “pet-projects” is to Pick books to go through in advance, and go straight through

I allow the Bible to set the tone and the topic.

We don’t skip parts that make us uncomfortable, and we don’t dwell on parts we really like.

Itinerant preaching

Timothy, Epaphroditus, Luke, Barnabas, etc, were all “traveling” or “itinerant preachers.” They weren’t a part of the local church structure, but they went to the churches and preached for a season

We fell into this practice inadvertently. On drill weekends we have Richard, or another student from SCC, or a professor from SCC come and give a message

Final word

These are just some examples. But ultimately our desire is to be a Christian Church that reads the Bible, and does what it says

We do this in community

I invite everybody to read your bible, study it, and constantly assess how we’re doing with Unity and Truth

You might think “hey we’re doing something we shouldn’t be doing” -- let us know

You might think “hey, we’re not doing something that we should be doing” -- let us know

At the end of the day I want us to carry out Jesus Final Prayer

John 17:16-23

[Explicate through the passage.]

John 17:16–23 NET 2nd ed.

They do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world. Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I set myself apart on their behalf, so that they too may be truly set apart. “I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. The glory you gave to me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one—I in them and you in me—that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.